


happy ever after, til the day you die

by sosobriquet



Category: Leverage
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 16:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5098214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sosobriquet/pseuds/sosobriquet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You'll keep them safe?" "Til my dying day."</p>
            </blockquote>





	happy ever after, til the day you die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fujiidom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fujiidom/gifts).



Parker is still counting, or stroking, a tall stack of bills when Eliot emerges from the brew-pub’s kitchen. Beside her, Hardison is on his laptop - the dark navy-colored one - doing something that is almost certainly illegal, if the look on his face is anything to go by.

 

Eliot places two bowls on the table, wide rims neatly lined with perfectly toasted slices of bread. Hardison reaches for the proffered spoon and digs in without looking away from his laptop. Parker sets her money carefully aside and slides the bowl closer to her with an appreciative sniff.

 

“Smells good,” she announces, right on top of Hardison’s, "What is this? It's amazing!”

 

"Beef Burgundy,” Eliot answers, waiting for Parker’s hum of approval before he asks the inevitable, “think we should put it on the menu?"

 

"Hell yeah, man,” Hardison drawls, and Eliot tries not to smile.

 

"It's good soup," Parker says, leaving the table with a half-full bowl and heading towards the kitchen.

 

Eliot grits his teeth and tells himself not to correct her. Instead, he says to Hardison, “I can’t tell you how glad I am you finally gave up your campy-gay act. This one went much better.”

 

“You think so? I think I was kind of overdoing the angry boyfriend,” Hardison admits with a shrug. “Maybe I should go back to being campy-gay,” he says, thoughtfully.

 

"For once, you weren’t overdoing it. At all,” Eliot insists. “When that creep called me baby, even _I_ thought you were gonna punch him," he adds, sounding almost impressed. He quickly replaces it with an accusing finger-point and a warning, "but punching people is my job.”

 

Parker emerges from the kitchen, a bowl of cereal in hand. Eliot studiously ignores the sugary mess.

 

"Relax, Eliot, you can’t always be the jealous boyfriend. It was nothing.”

 

Leaning over the table slightly, Parker lays a hand on Hardison’s shoulder. “He means he really was jealous,” she offers, and turns to leave, trailing her hand across his back and other shoulder.

 

Hardison stares, as if she’s said something unbelievable and shocking, as she passes by on her way to the oversized couch and the tv to match.

 

Eliot watches them both with narrowed eyes.

 

There is nothing that is not weird about Parker's statement, aside from the fact that this is Parker, and Hardison, and _everything_ is _always_ weird with them.

 

Eliot turns his vaguely threatening, evaluating glare on Hardison, knowing that Parker won’t be bothered, but it will make him squirm. “What are you making that face for?” he growls.

 

Parker drapes herself over the back of the couch, looking as innocent as ever. “Because we _like_ you, silly.”

 

__________

  
  


Hardison flings open the passenger door of Lucille the Third so quickly, it very nearly clips a soaking wet Eliot.

 

As it is, he flinches back from the swinging door and bumps into Parker, hovering behind him and trying to dry his hair.

 

“That was a _shark tank_ , Eliot!” Hardison informs him, loudly, and shrilly. “With sharks!”

 

“I had no idea,” Eliot grumbles, shrugging Parker and her towels off to climb into the backseat.

 

“There's room for you up here,” she tells him, over Hardison’s continuing tirade, and slides to the middle of the wide bench seat.

 

“No thanks,” he replies, his mood only slightly improved by Parker’s attempts to convince Hardison of his perfect health.

 

_Yes, Eliot does still possess all of his extremities, fingers and toes included. Of course I counted them, Alec!_

 

She really had. Eliot was going to miss those boots.

 

\-----

 

It takes Eliot over an hour to escape from their fussing and lock himself in Parker and Hardison’s bathroom for a proper once-over. The worst of his injuries is a bruised shin where he’d banged it scrambling out of the tank. It was nothing worth mentioning - considering the circumstances, it was  _less_ than nothing.

 

He stepps into the shower before the water has a chance to warm, desperate to escape the itchy-dried-salt of his skin. He thinks about burning his clothes later, rather than trying to wash the smell of saltwater and fish out.

 

\-----

 

Eliot skulks out of the bathroom, dressed in the borrowed clothes someone had so thoughtfully snuck onto the counter while he was preoccupied, and is immediately accosted by two pairs of hands.

 

“We ordered takeout,” Parker chirps in his ear, hooking her arm through his and leading him to the living room.

 

“Hope you like Thai,” Hardison laughs, because he already knows the answer.

 

Parker steers him to the middle of the couch, while Hardison disappears into the kitchen for enough beer to go with the containers obscuring the coffee table from one end to the other.

 

Returning with a few icy-cold bottles, Hardison curls up against one arm of the couch and reaches for a box. “What are we watching tonight, babe?”

 

“Ratatouille! For Eliot!” Parker says through a mouthful of noodles, and starts the movie.

 

“I don’t even like-” Eliot begins to protest, sliding over to give Parker the middle seat.

 

Before he can set his beer down on the end table, Parker has squeezed between him and the arm of the couch, pushing him back toward Hardison.

 

“You’re still wet,” she says disapprovingly, and Eliot gives her one of his ‘you must be crazy’ looks.

 

“Because I just got out of the shower?”

 

Parker moves to get up, but Hardison leans close and snakes his arm across the back of the couch to catch her shoulder. His arm is very warm against the damp hair plastered to the nape of Eliot’s neck.

 

“He’s fine,” Hardison murmurs over the opening credits. “We’re good.”

  
“Yeah,” Parker agrees with a little sigh, passing Eliot a takeout box of his own and tucking herself against his other side.

**Author's Note:**

> I DID try to work cyborg scissoring in, but it never did work out. C'est la vie, or something.


End file.
